UKSpirituality Blog

On being too busy to blog

nicktancock@aol.com (Nicholas Axam) — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 05:14:50 +0000

Seneca advised a friend who had just been offered a plum job not to take it – better to contemplate the balance sheet of your own life than the corn trade, he told him – and my lack of recent posts has been largely down to work too. I’ve been too busy to blog, and too preoccupied with earning a crust to have much inspiration to do so, either.

This is a danger we’re all acquainted with. Seneca also wrote on the shortness of life:

Just as travellers are beguiled by conversation or reading or some profound meditation, and find that they have arrived at their destination before they knew they were approaching it; so it is with this unceasing and extremely fast-moving journey of life, which waking and sleeping we make at the same pace – the preoccupied become aware of it only when it is over.

The last few months of life have whizzed by and haven’t been at all bad, but part of me is conscious that I can’t – and certainly don’t want – to keep up this pace. There is, as the old Stoic would agree, more to life…

I’ve got a holiday coming up soon, after which I hope things will drop a gear or two. The book should also, finally, be coming out so that should be interesting. When I consulted the I Ching about its prospects, I ended up with the Trigram Opposition... which doesn't particularly bother me to be honest. Fortunately there is not one called "Indifference"!

So some things to look forward to, although, as I keep reminding myself, it’s not about the looking forward, but the here and now (which of course I’ll bear in mind when I receive my next outrageous deadline).

The style of Quentin Crisp - an enduring philosophy

nicktancock@aol.com (Nicholas Axam) — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 08:14:02 +0000

If I have any talent at all, it is not for doing but for being, said Quentin Crisp, and his philosophy is one I keep returning to.

Considering Crisp as a philosopher rather than a “stately homo” as he put it, may surprise some, but his deceptively breezy quips were underpinned by an abiding and consistent approach to life he christened Crisperanto.

Rather than attempting to achieve a kind of perfection, he counselled embracing one’s flaws. In doing so, one would develop one’s style.

You have to polish up your raw identity into a life-style so that you can barter with the outside world for what you want, he said. I won’t say what you deserve because if we all got what we deserve we would starve.

Certainly I derive some solace from his observation that if at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style.

Those rejection letters don’t feel so bad now. Hell, it’s my style. And you know what? Accepting one’s failings makes it easier to accept one’s successes too.

Quentin was soundly against modernity. At his 1976 show he announced I really am here to cure you of your freedom because I am sure that it is an excess of freedom that makes the world so unhappy…

Quentin’s cure for this was to urge everyone to adopt chains of their own making.

For all his airy-fairyness, rouge and floppy hats, Quentin’s philosophy was supremely grounding, borne of an Edwardian England like him, when life was harsh and people got on with it. There was little of the sense of entitlement that so often leaves modern people feeling disappointed – even the prospects of the wealthiest life were over-shadowed by diseases now easily preventable, the First World War which had swept away a generation.

Edwardians were closer to the stuff of life, and death, than us, and Quentin was like a well-mannered messenger from this wiser age, preaching self-sufficiency through honesty – a becoming not of the person we could be, but perhaps the one we were born to be.

The great trick with life is not to become like other people but to become more like yourself, he said.

When you next find yourself envying a Nobel-winning author, millionaire landowner or Olympic champion, you could do worse than bear this in mind, even as you acknowledge that envy might just be your style.

The Tao of David Beckham

nicktancock@aol.com (Nicholas Axam) — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 03:45:40 +0000

Watching the legendary footballer sobbing as he realized he had broken his Achilles tendon and would not make it to the World Cup, I felt real sadness. Not just for England’s World Cup chances but for the man himself, whose serene attitude exemplifies a kind of oneness at odds with the fractured celebrity-culture the Beckham “brand” paradoxically embodies.

It has not always been thus. His early wunderkind career was characterized by a brittleness that reached its Cavalry during the 1998 World Cup Finals when he was sent off for lashing out in a match against Argentina. He subsequently attracted much of the blame for England’s elimination from the competition. An effigy was hung of him outside a London pub and his performances were met with boos for years.

Yet in the face of this opprobrium the footballer transformed in to a figure of calm and fair play. He told the Guardian:

I could have done interview after interview to try to explain myself, but doing it on the pitch counts for more… In that sort of situation you can either go home and cry, which I felt like doing at times, or you can come out fighting… I worked hard at it, to get where I am today.

Beckham is known for his rigorous training regime, commitment to the art of football. The multi-millionaire could have wound down his days at LA Galaxy were it not for his love of the game and desire to get in the England squad – hence his move to AC Milan to stay in shape, just as US players like Galaxy teammate Landon Donovan are seeing out the season in England’s Premier League.

One of the things I like about Beckham is how his marriage to “Posh” Spice Girl Victoria (in fact every bit as working class as him and raised down the road from me, as it happens) appears to have hardly changed him at all. He has cheerfully acquiesced to Victoria’s preoccupation with fashion, enjoyed it clearly too, adorning himself with tattoos like a Maori warrior, but has rarely sought the affirmation celebrities so often seek. He has nothing to prove, no interest, plainly, outside his commitment to his art. For all the Gucci trappings, David Beckham remains an “uncut block” bobbing along with the river’s flow.

Now of course he has hit the rocks, risks being pushed under – his very meaning called in to question. I hope however his inner-resilience, the sense of self he has cultivated through adversity will stand him in sufficient stead to weather the storm.

Back in the late 1990s, when he was approaching national pariah status, a church put up a sign reading

GOD EVEN FORGIVES BECKS

David would do well to reflect how true this turned out to be, and how a kind of resurrection remains within the grasp of us all.

admin@ukspirituality.org (Administrator) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 10:03:02 +0000

Amazing sand 'paintings' by Kseniya Simonova. Astounding. Just have to see it.

The amazing thing is that the people in the audience are actually moved to tears...

Hard Things

revlahart@gmail.com (Linda Hart) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 07:36:55 +0000

Sometimes, hard things are worth doing.

I looked down at the bamboo knitting needles in my hands. The cotton string that had been in the process of becoming a lace scarf was hopelessly muddled, and there was nothing to do but to unravel it back to the beginning. Again. For the fourth (or was it fifth?) time.
Sometimes, hard things are worth doing.

I looked down at the bamboo knitting needles in my hands. The cotton string that had been in the process of becoming a lace scarf was hopelessly muddled, and there was nothing to do but to unravel it back to the beginning. Again. For the fourth (or was it fifth?) time.

I must have sighed aloud as I began to pull the stitches out, because my husband Peter looked a bit concerned. Gently he asked if I perhaps should be doing something else. He had watched as I had knit for a while, and then, realising that I had made a mistake, focussed in on correcting it. Painfully slowly and very carefully, I took apart two rows stitch by stitch for about 40 minutes, and finally made satisfied noises, pleased that I had managed to put things to right. Now, only a few rows further along, it had all gone wrong again with no hope of getting it right. I was too lost.

It wasn’t long before I began my next attempt. And I will continue to work at it until I have created the scarf no matter how many times I take it out and start again.

It’s a change for me. I don’t often have patience for things that I don’t do well straightaway. I don’t like doing things badly, and sometimes – maybe often even – it has kept me from risking new experiences. I watch someone do something so very well, and doubt that I’ll ever be able to achieve it. I listen to singing or poetry, see feet and body embody a lovely dance, or note the graceful curve of stroke of paint on a piece of paper. Then I keep my hands folded in my lap and sit quietly believing that I could never make something of real beauty, dance like that, sing or speak with such confidence or clarity.

But doing hard things is worth the effort. Keeping faith with the process of learning, being open to failure, and carrying on helps to train our hearts and minds for what life gives us.

As the lacy fabric became string again, I pondered winding it back into a ball and setting it aside for another project.

No, I decided as the last stitch popped out. I’ll continue to work on this scarf, seeking to make it as perfect as I can, trying to have the orderly stitches open in delicate leafy patterns.

Learning patience on a small piece of handwork is still learning patience. Paying attention to a single stitch is still learning to focus on the moment. It is, like meditation, a way to discover your own truth, your own strength. It is a way to learn how to be in your life and to appreciate it, no matter that it may be difficult.

I cast on 57 stitches again. I can see the that cream coloured string has become gray and a bit tattered. I cut off what is no longer usable, and begin one more time. Breathing deeply, I start knitting the pattern and watch the scarf begin to emerge. It is good to do a small difficult thing, and to notice the learning that comes along with it. I am training my heart and mind whilst I train my hands. Knit two, yarn forward, knit two together. The cloth grows on the needles. I will succeed, if not this time, then soon.